Dennis Bakhuis

Dive site · sea · Dahab and the Gulf of Aqaba

🇪🇬 El Bells to the Blue Hole

Dahab, South Sinai, Egypt

The classic Dahab traverse — drop into a chimney in the reef flat, come out of it at 27 m onto an open wall, and drift south to the Blue Hole.

Dives here
1
Deepest
31.1 m
Water
salt
First · last
2008

Revision 2 · changed 18 Oct 2026

History
  1. r2 18 Oct 2026 Neutral geo_source · Dennis Bakhuis
  2. r1 10 Oct 2026 Imported from the personal log · Dennis Bakhuis

Site data © divelog-sites contributors (ODbL), descriptions and maps CC BY-SA 4.0 · 53edcaf

1 map

Blue Hole, over 100 mReef topReef flatWallSaddle 7 mEl Bells chimneyBells to Blue Hole along the wall · 329 mEntry El Bells (chimney)↓0 mChimney opens onto the wall↓27 mArchway↓20 mExit Blue Hole↓0 mSaddle↓7 mThe Arch: 26 m tunnel to the open sea, ceiling↓55 mDeep: stay above the ArchN20 m
  • Entry / exit
  • Hazard
  • Point of interest
  • Shoreline
  • Dive path
  • Wall / drop-off
  • Depth band
  • Shallows
  • Depth
Site map · 4 objects · 1 path · max 100 m

The classic traverse: in at El Bells, down the chimney to its opening onto the wall at about 27 m, then south along the wall (left when facing out) for about 250 m, over the saddle at 7 m into the Blue Hole and out on the reef flat. Positions are approximate. The Arch at 55 m (Wikipedia) is shown as a hazard; coastline from OpenStreetMap.

Map © divelog-sites contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0 · 53edcaf

El Bells is a narrow vertical chimney cut through the reef about 500 m north of the Blue Hole. You walk in off the shore, fin out a few metres, and descend into a shaft barely wider than a diver with gear on. It runs from about 3 m down to 27 m, where it opens abruptly out of the side of the cliff into blue water with the wall dropping away beneath you. The transition from a stone tube to unlimited open water is the whole point of the site.

From there you turn left and drift south along the wall — big gorgonians, a shallow ledge of coral on the way — until the wall breaks and you come over the saddle into the Blue Hole and exit on the beach.

It is one dive, and the log records it as one: 8 August 2008, 31.1 m for 48 minutes. It also does the sensible thing that the Arch route does not, which is spend the deepest part of the dive at the very beginning and get progressively shallower.

Dived here with

Kim

Nearby sites

1 dive at El Bells to the Blue Hole

  1. 8 Aug 2008 with Kim drift date8 Aug 2008 depth31.1 m time48 min water—

Sources

  • First-hand observation (Dennis Bakhuis)